


thought the world to be quite obscene

by notavodkashot



Series: FFXV one shots [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: ...it's just flat out fucked up okay, Body Horror, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Grooming, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Oral Sex, Power Imbalance, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-29 02:03:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12620676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/pseuds/notavodkashot
Summary: The King of Lucis has a Shield, boastful and grandiose. But the Emperor of Nilfheim has a Sword, and his name isGlauca.





	thought the world to be quite obscene

**Author's Note:**

  * For [infidusfiles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infidusfiles/gifts).



> ...idek, man, Infi was going on about enabling things and I just. Kinda had to prove my "No, really, I _will_ write anything and make you like it" credentials.
> 
> I guess the only takeaway from this is... careful what you joke about around me? I might end up writing it, after all.

* * *

_thought the world to be quite obscene_

* * *

He is fifteen, when Lucis becomes Insomnia. 

He's fifteen, when he watches his village burn, red like the banners of the Empire, and he decides he's going to kill the Emperor himself. 

He's sixteen when he reaches Gralea, feral and half dead but every scrap of his soul demanding restitution for his loss. 

The Emperor is not what he's expecting – the Emperor has transformed into a monstrosity in his mind, twisted over and over by fever and starvation and sheer, untempered hate. The Emperor does not cower when he breaks into the room nor when he presses the blade against his throat. He sleeps in silk sheets, woven from the threads of screams of all those who've died for his wars, and Titus hates him, every tiny speck of him, blind to anything but it. 

“If you're going to do it,” the Emperor says, indolent and calm, as if Titus isn't sitting on his chest, holding a rusted, chipped blade to his throat – better dull than sharp, to tear and rent and make his vengeance last. “Then do it.” 

He will. He will. He crawled the length of the world on hands and knees for this, when he grew too tired to keep walking. This is the only thing that's kept him going, the embers of the fire that consumed his world. 

The Emperor stares at him, blue eyes sharp and expectant, and Titus feels tears gather in his eyes, because no matter how much he commands it, his arm refuses to move. He flinches when a hand wraps around his throat, dropping the dagger, but the fingers do not tighten. The hold does nothing but tilt his head into the light, to allow the Emperor to better assess him, and Titus rages and cries and holds still, limp and soulless in his grasp. 

“I hate you,” Titus whispers and resigns himself to die. 

The Emperor smiles. 

* * *

He's nearly seventeen, when they take him from his room and into the bowels of the keep, deep into the earth. He lets them tie him to the wall the same way he let them undress him, the same way he let them take him from the Emperor's chambers. They've washed and fed him and put him in a soft, barless prison to heal his body, but his soul is dead as the ashes of his life. 

The first bite of the whip on his back goes unnoticed. So does the second, and the third. 

“Do you understand,” the Emperor asks, voice soft like the melodies his mother used to sing, cutting through the fog in his mind, “why you couldn't do it?” 

Titus' head snaps back, staring at the vision of white watching from the doorway. The next swing of the whip lights up his world in bright hot pain, and he becomes aware of the slick warmth running down his spine, blood weeping from the welts. He has not seen the Emperor, since the fateful night he failed to do the one thing left for him to do, but now he is there, and the world is sharper and vibrant and real, because of it. The whip keeps falling, unrelenting. Titus tries to withstand it, first, biting his tongue until there's as much blood in his mouth as there's running down his thighs. 

“The sword is only as strong as the hand that wields it,” the Emperor says, impassive and relentless. “Do you hate me, boy? Truly? Or do you hate yourself, your weakness?” 

Titus begs, near the end. He does not beg for mercy, though, but for the sweet, sweet release of death. Distantly, he thinks that if he had not spent months kept safe in a barless cage, fed and tended too, he would not have survived this. He was made to survive this. The thought sits heavy in his gut, too gnarled up for him to comprehend when the bulk of his faculties is consumed with pain. 

He collapses when they release him from the wall, crashing into the ground and into the pool of his own blood, now mud on his skin. He whimpers, as the Emperor approaches, white robes dragging into the ground, collecting stains as he goes. 

“You are a very filthy, worthless thing,” the Emperor says, kneeling at his side, and all Titus can really see, before his head is tilted up to meet his eyes, is the obscene marks sullying his robe. “But so is ore, before it is refined.” 

* * *

He's nineteen when he's given the armor. 

“I don't need it,” Titus says, fierce, back bowed but head tilted back insolently. 

He will be whipped for it, disciplined for stepping out of line. The Emperor relishes in order and perfection, and tolerates nothing but in his hall. He knows this, knows it like he knows where every scar is on his back, but he doesn't care. He'll take the whip before taking the coward's way out. He's not a toy soldier, like the trinkets that Besithia builds for the Emperor's amusement. He's raw strength and unflinching power, and everything crumbles before the might of his sword, the purity of his purpose. He's not a chipped, dulled blade held in trembling hands. He's solid steel, folded over and over into itself, an edge to peel off the skin of the world. 

“Come,” the Emperor says, and then stands from the throne, graceful and light, white robes flowing in a whisper that reminds Titus of the old prayers to the old Gods. 

He follows, pulled on by a nonexistent chain around his neck, the tips of it wound forever around the Emperor's hand. They reach the balcony as the sun sinks in the horizon, sky bleeding red into purplish black as the day dies. 

“What do you see?” The Emperor asks him, folding his arms against the ornate rails. 

Titus runs his eyes across the skyline of the Capital, frowning. He won't be punished, if he fails to answer correctly, so long as he answers honestly. But the Emperor will look at him in disappointment, if he guesses incorrectly, and perhaps that is punishment enough on its own. Before his eyes, the city darkens in an echo of the sky, before the light begins to bloom, one small twinkle at the time, until it floods Gralea, defiant against the fading glow of stars above. 

“Light,” Titus says, blunt and hopeful anyway, and basks in the sliver of a smile that curls up in the corner of the Emperor's lips. 

“The darkness threatens to swallow the world,” the Emperor says, smile fading and eyes hardening with strength Titus can only aspire to become a shadow of, one day. “Lucis sits in its throne of lies, hoarding the Crystal for the sake of an old story that suits their greed. I covet their light,” he adds, quieter, like a truth Titus is not sure he's meant to hear. “But it will not be freely given. There will be war,” he says, in a way that implies all until now has not been, and Titus remembers, once upon a time, when he was young and meek and worthless, that he would have argued that. The scars ache sweetly, echoes of the whip, tangible measures of all he's learned, since then. “I will not lose the war.” 

Titus does not say, I will win it for you, not because he doesn't believe it with every fiber of his being, but because the Emperor detests sentimentality. So he bows instead, and when the enormity of it dawns on him, like a wave crashing on shore, he falls to his knees, willing. 

“I don't need the armor,” he says, still, because he doesn't. 

He doesn't. 

He flinches when a single finger brushes the side of his head, and then tilts his face up, pulled by magnetism, chasing the ghost of touch like a starving hound. 

“None of this hinges on what you need,” the Emperor says, pulling his hand back, up to press the finger against his lips. “You will wear the armor,” he adds, blue eyes cold and unrelenting as the Glacian's wrath, “if nothing else because it'll please me that you do.” 

Titus falls, again and again and again, forever falling, him. 

“Yes, Your Imperial Radiance.” 

And later, when Besithia lies him on the table, scalpel in one hand and hunger in his eyes, the Emperor is there. Titus does not scream when Besithia peels him open, one layer at the time, sculpting him out of metal woven with pain. Titus lays there, willing, open, wanting, and it is all worth it, because the Emperor smiles. 

Smiles. 

“I've decided to gift you something,” the Emperor tells him standing over him, admiring the thin, pale lines where the armor hides beneath his skin, now until forever. Titus does not try to cover himself, any part of him, because his body like this, wound tight around a metal frame, bent and twisted under the surface, it _pleases_ him. “A new name, to conmemorate your rebirth.” 

“I am not worthy of such kindness,” Titus whispers, swallowing back a whimper when a finger traces down the center of his chest, pressing idly to try and feel the armor beneath. 

“I'm well aware you're not,” the Emperor replies, dismissive and truthful, and all of Titus aches, and all of it pools mercilessly between his legs. “But perhaps one day, you'll prove yourself worth of it... Glauca.” 

Glauca. Glauca. Glauca. 

He savors the sound spilling gently from the Emperor's mouth, almost like a sigh. Yes, he thinks, panting for breath and the ghost of fingers no longer on his skin, he can be Glauca. Will be. He basks in the Emperor's look, curious and neutral, even if he's a filthy, wanton wreck before him. The Emperor treasures honesty, and light, and peace, and all things pure and good. Titus is none of those, no, but maybe Glauca can be. 

Will be. 

“What would you do for me?” The Emperor asks him, a pleased murmur that hints at the answer they both know well enough, but then a finger traces the cut along his jaw, pressing hard enough tiny pearls of blood ooze out into the surface. 

“Anything,” Titus whimpers. “Everything,” Glauca promises. 

The Emperor raises the bloodstained finger to his lips and heat explodes between his legs at the sight of his tongue tasting the stain. When he surfaces back, body smeared in semen and blood, Titus is dead, and only Glauca remains. 

“Oh, I told him not to strain himself,” Besithia mutters, as he comes in to tend to the mess. 

The Emperor raises a hand, keeping him back, away, as if Glauca bloodied and soiled is a spectacle only fit for his personal enjoyment. 

“How soon can he be deployed?” The Emperor asks, staring down at Glauca's eyes, his own deep and endless like the ocean in a storm. 

“It's... hard to say,” Besithia replies, nervous and spineless and Glauca wants to reach out and snuff the light of his life with his bare hands. “The procedure was successful, of course, but it will take him time to heal properly and then even more to fully master the armor enough to be combat ready. It... could very well take over a year, Your Imperial Majesty, if there are complications.” 

“There won't be,” the Emperor assures him, and Glauca stutters a breath, drunk with pride at the certainty behind the statement. “I will march on Tenebrae in three months, and he will march with me.” 

* * *

Tenebrae burns. So does Jubar. So does Cleigne. Duscae. Leide. 

And each time Glauca returns, bloodstains on his armor and pride on his soul, to stand before the throne and be judged for what he's done. 

And later still, much later, and before a different throne, Glauca pays homage on his knees, mouth open and eyes closed. And there, and only there, before the throne of the world, he can be sheath instead of blade, sharpness folded into itself. The Emperor runs his fingers through his hair and sinks into his throat, slow and steady, luxuriating in submission freely given. He need not speak, he need not demand; everything is his, and Glauca basks in it, the only reward he could ever want, the thrill of ownership and command. 

The Emperor is beautiful in the light, cloaked in it while all around him sinks inexorably into darkness. He's glorious and grand, and he's made Glauca into the instrument of his will, consumed from the inside out with the gravity of purpose. The King of Lucis has a Shield, boastful and grandiose. But the Emperor of Nilfheim has a Sword, and his name is _Glauca_. 

He needs nothing more. 

"Bring me their heads," the Emperor whispers, fingers light against his lips, and Glauca curls his tongue against them, inviting them in, eager, despite the warm still clinging to his throat. "Deliver them to light." 

Glauca bows. Low, low enough to touch his forehead to the ground, and inside him the fire roars, heat and desperation oozing into his skin like scales of armor carefuly molded to his form. He's hard and wanton and untouched, but he doesn't care, doesn't dare ask for more. He dares not think of further sullying the mirage before him; that he lowers himself to touch him at all is more than he deserves. Where he a man, he would feel tempted to let his his thoughts wander down that pit, but he is more than that. He's been made into more. 

The Emperor commands, the Sword obeys. And another corner of the map will burn, crisp and clear, defiant against the darkness of the night sky. 

The Chosen King forges his empire, one swing at the time. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out on [DW](https://notavodkashot.dreamwidth.org/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/notavodkashot), if you'd like.


End file.
